Television receivers and radio receivers are conventionally known as program playback apparatuses. Arrangements for transmitting and receiving programs across networks are also known. In an arrangement like this, programs can be played back by a computer having a function of transmitting and receiving data across a network. Streaming is one technique which distributes video and audio programs across networks. That is, streaming is a technology by which one side transmits data such as video and audio data and at the same time the other side receives and plays back the transmitted data across the Internet or an intranet.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-309258 has as its object to quickly output images in response to television channel switching instructions, and discloses a technique which selects data corresponding to television channels adjacent to a television channel to be received, and decompresses video and audio signals in parallel.